I Changed My Name and My Fate Chapter 11

I Changed My Name and My Fate Chapter 11

The first snow of winter fell on the day I went to the mall for Toby’s birthday present. He was deep in his dinosaur phase.

Alexander said one dinosaur was plenty. I stared at the display wall of dinosaurs and bought every single

one.

Alexander looked at the receipt for a long moment. “You don’t get to call me the soft parent anymore.”

I handed my card to the cashier. “Go ahead. I own it.”

We were heading down to the parking garage when someone lurched out from behind a pillar. The

bodyguards closed in instantly.

She hit the ground and looked up. Chloe’s mom.

Her hair had gone gray. She was wearing a stained winter coat and clutching a half-full bag of empty bottles.

The moment she recognized me, her whole face changed.

“Eleanor!” She dragged herself across the concrete and clutched my coat.

“My baby – I finally found you.” I stepped back.

The bodyguards peeled her off me. She was a wreck – tears and snot smeared across her face.

“Eleanor, Chloe’s a monster. She stole everything I had left and sent the debt collectors after me.”

“Look what they did to me.” She shoved her sleeves up. Her arms were covered in bruises – purple, yellow,

black.

–

“I know I deserve this. But please help me. Please. You’re all I have left.”

I looked at her.

This was the woman who used to stand in the Thorne living room in designer dresses, telling anyone who’d

listen that I’d brought bad luck home from foster care. She said poverty clung to my hands.

She wouldn’t let me touch Chloe’s piano. Wouldn’t let me sit at the table with them.

And on the night I was burning with fever, slumped by the front door in the rain, she was inside fussing over

Chloe’s blankets and complaining that the room was too drafty.

I pulled out my phone and opened a voice recording.

The last recording I’d made, years ago, the night they threw me out. Rain thundered in the background.

My voice on the recording was so raw I barely recognized it. “Mom, open the door. I have a fever. I didn’t push

her. I really didn’t.”

**you*, He was goners were try and

NO

Chloe’s mom’s voice came through crystal clear. “Ignore her. Let her freeze out there. She won’t learn unless she suffers.”

Then Chloe’s voice, sweet and whiny. “Mom, I’m cold.”

And just like that, Chloe’s mom’s voice softened. “Of course, sweetheart. Let me tuck you in.”

The tears on Chloe’s mom’s face froze halfway down her cheeks.

“I almost died that night. Did it ever cross your mind – even once that I was yours?”

Her lips shook. “I… Chloe tricked me. I didn’t know-”

“Tricked you?” I put my phone away.

–

“Did she trick you into hearing me say I had a fever? Did she trick you into seeing me collapsed in the rain? Did she trick you into leaving the door locked?”

Chloe’s mom couldn’t speak.

Then she lunged for my phone. “Delete it!”

“You can’t keep that!” The bodyguards had her on the ground in a flash.

Mall security came running, took one look at her, and hauled her out.

She fought them the whole way, screaming.

“Eleanor Thorne, I’m your mother! You can’t do this to me!”

I watched them drag her toward the exit. Halfway there, she clutched one side of her body. Her face twisted,

one corner of her mouth dragging down, and she crumpled to the floor.

The security guards called an ambulance.

Harper told me later that it was a stroke. One side of her body was paralyzed. No one came to pay the bills,

so she waited for a bed in the hallway of a public hospital.

Chloe didn’t come. Julian was in a psychiatric facility.\

Chloe’s dad was in a federal holding cell. She’d finally run out of people to choose over me.

Alexander picked me up himself. The snow was coming down harder by the time I got in the car.

He handed me a cup of hot chocolate. “Are your hands cold?”

I wrapped my fingers around the cup. “No.”

He glanced at me. “What about the rest of you?”

I looked down at the warmth spreading through my palms. “Not anymore.”-The End-